On the 19th August, Lois attended a conference on “Whole School Development – Myth or Reality” at Arabella. This was a most inspiring and motivating day.

Educational experts voiced their considerable concerns about the state of education openly and honestly.

At long last there is also concern being expressed about the lack of content knowledge which teachers show, the extraordinary amounts of money which have been spent on training without any translation into classroom practice, the way in which incompetency has been allowed to continue etc. There were many really good speakers and it was extremely refreshing to get the realities of education on the table for discussion and debate. Interestingly, there appeared to be consensus that the new curriculum is fine but OBE methodology cannot be implemented at this stage.